This fall, Target will open three additional smaller format stores to bring its total count across college campuses to 23. Have college campuses emerged into a more viable growth opportunity for larger chains?

In what some reports defined as the e-commerce giant’s launch of BOPIS, Amazon.com last week formally introduced Counter, which allows its customers to pick up packages at third-party retail locations. Does Amazon need a personnel-assisted Counter option at stores in addition to Lockers?

Amazon.com has teamed up with model, influencer and second-year college student Ava Phillippe to support the second year of its Off-to-College store. What do you think of using influencers as spokespersons and curators of online style guides in categories such as fashion and home?

Not every digital brand is a guaranteed hit on Amazon.com, but mattress startup Tuft & Needle hit its stride using the platform. What calculations do you think brands should undertake before deciding to sell on Amazon or other third-party marketplaces?

Digital businesses that aren’t marketing to the multicultural consumer are losing out big time, says the senior program manager of inclusion and diversity at Amazon.com Should every brand or retailer be implementing tools to collect insights about the cultural and ethnic background of their audience so they can market accordingly?

It turns out 36 hours simply isn’t enough time for Prime Day. Amazon.com has announced that it will hold the sales promotion event for not one, not one-and-a-half, but two days this year. Will Amazon’s Prime Day 2019 further weaken some of its retail competitors?

There was a time not too long ago when the only thing a person could hope to get delivered in 30 minutes was a pizza. Is delivering grocery products consistently in 30 minutes something customers can expect? Do you think Kroger can deliver on this promise?

Facebook on Tuesday confirmed that it would lead an effort to create a new global digital currency, called Libra, powered by blockchain technology. Is it time for retailers to accept cryptocurrencies?

The former chief strategy officer at Snapchat and his wife, formerly at Quidsi, have launched Verishop, a new online platform designed to bring “the joy back to shopping.” Will Verishop’s approach to brand curation and customer service set it apart from other online competitors?

Amazon.com last week introduced StyleSnap, a feature that makes fashion recommendations based on user-submitted photos. What do you think of StyleSnap and the potential of artificial intelligence to support fashion discovery?

Target wants to give its customers more financial flexibility when it comes to receiving same-day delivery of items purchased online. How do you assess Target’s overall digital sales progress compared with competitors such as Amazon.com and Walmart?

One analyst views FedEx’s decision not to renew its Express domestic contract with Amazon.com as “…a watershed moment for the parcel industry…” Does FedEx’s decision not to renew its Express U.S. domestic contract with Amazon point to better opportunities for other retailers?

First, Barnes & Noble agreed to be acquired by hedge fund Elliott Management. Now, however, the book distributor, Readerlink is seeking to raise financing to make its own bid. Would Barnes & Noble under the ownership of either Elliott or Readerlink be more likely to succeed than under current management?

Amazon.com has launched a new program with Synchrony which is designed to help people who have no credit history or want to rebuild their credit scores do so responsibly. Do you think a large number of people with bad credit or no credit will be attracted to the Amazon Prime Store Credit Card Builder program?

Amazon Restaurants, the e-tail giant’s restaurant delivery service launched in 2015, will not deliver any more meals after June 24, GeekWire reports. Do you think the latest news means that Amazon has abandoned restaurant deliveries altogether or does it have something else planned?

Walmart’s new service, InHome Delivery, delivers fresh groceries directly into refrigerators within shoppers’ homes and garages. What do you think of the potential of Walmart’s InHome Delivery service?

Earlier this week, Amazon reminded the press and investors that it has not given up on Mr. Bezos’ drone ambition, announced a new Prime Air delivery hybrid drone that functions as part helicopter and part plane. Do you think Alphabet, Amazon and others will be operating robust drone delivery programs in the next several years?

Walmart has had a tough time getting customers to adopt scan-and-go technology. Now Walmart Canada is piloting a layout that could change how customers think about it. Will Walmart’s new checkout approach overcome the retailer’s previous difficulties with getting customers to adopt scan-and-go?

Amazon.com is exploring an acquisition of Boost Mobile, Sprint’s low-cost, prepaid carrier, as well as any wireless spectrum that may become available as a result of the Sprint and T-Mobile merger. Does it make sense for Amazon to acquire Boost Mobile and/or launch its own wireless network?

As streetwear continues to trend, one e-tailer appears to be emerging as a go-to spot for the brands that athletes, urbanites and “hype beasts” are buying. To what do you attribute the success of TheDrop and how can other streetwear-focused players differentiate and compete?

Amazon may soon seem a less hospitable place for small third-party sellers as it cozies up to larger retailers and shifts its percentage of products sourced from small suppliers to larger entities. Will Amazon’s apparent decision to reduce the wholesale business it is doing with small vendors have an impact on its performance?

Move over Amazon.com and Walmart — Target wants a bigger piece of the retail advertising pie. Will owning advertising businesses become a major competitive advantage for large retailers such as Amazon, Target and Walmart?

Axios Harris’ 2019 poll of the 100 Most Visible Companies shows that just 41 percent of U.S. respondents agree Amazon.com shares their values. Will any of the ethical questions surrounding Amazon will become an impediment to growth over the next five years?

Despite Amazon.com’s publicity push to promote price cuts at Whole Foods, the chain remains the highest price grocer in the land, according to a new study. How long before Whole Foods customers call a figurative BS on its repeated price cut claims?

Amazon needs to build its fleet of delivery vehicles and is looking to its own employees to help put trucks on the road. What impact might having former Amazon employees join its Delivery Service Partner program have on delivery efficiency?

No one expected that Walmart would stand pat after Amazon.com announced last month that it was cutting its standard two-day delivery time for Prime members to a single day. Do you find Marc Lore makes a compelling business case for Walmart’s move into next day delivery of online orders?

H&M has announced plans to discontinue its catalog business. What factors, in your mind, argue for or against dumping retail print catalogs?

Google is most often the first destination for shoppers looking for inspiration or starting a purchase journey with a specific product in mind, according to recent research. How do you think Google stacks up against Amazon when it comes to inspiration and discovery in the online shopping journey?

Unlike its rivals, Walmart will continue to offer Vudu as a free, ad-supported streaming service rather than seeking subscription income. Will original programming with shoppable content help Walmart draw audience market share from Amazon, Netflix and other streaming competitors?

Amazon.com’s push into grocery has relied on converting Prime Members into Whole Foods shoppers. Yet 70 percent of Prime members rarely or never shop at Whole Foods, according to a recent survey Are the needs of Amazon Prime members and traditional Whole Foods shoppers significantly misaligned?

Amazon.com has long maintained that its Prime membership program is “the best deal in retail.” Yesterday, the e-tail giant announced plans to make the program even better. How will Amazon’s guarantee of one-day shipping for Prime memberships affect the expectations that consumers have about deliveries of online orders?

While in-home voice tech is becoming more commonplace, BevMo!, a leading wine and liquor chain on the west coast, is piloting an AI-powered, voice-capable whiskey shopping experiences in five stores. Will chatbots eventually become a common selling tool at the store level?

The emergence of a new technology is often cited as what drives the disruption of an industry or business. But that’s not true in most cases, according to a Harvard Business School professor. Do you agree that addressing weak links in the customer value chain has been a bigger disruptor in retail than new technologies?

What began as a 100-store test in 2017 has blown up with the announcement that Kohl’s will accept returns for products ordered on Amazon.com at all of its 1,150 stores in 48 states. What do you make of Kohl’s chainwide expansion of the free Amazon return program?

Livestream shopping is seeing explosive growth in Asia, and numerous platforms have launched similar experiences in the U.S. Could livestream shopping generate strong appeal with U.S. consumers?

Walmart announced another step last week to jumpstart its fledgling online advertising business with the acquisition of digital advertising start-up Polymorph Labs. What do you think of Walmart’s ambition to become a major player in the online advertising business?

In Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos’ annual letter to shareholders, nothing gained as much attention as his call for retail rivals to offer a higher minimum wage than the $15 an hour that Amazon began paying its entry-level workers last year. What do you think Jeff Bezos was looking to gain by challenging retail rivals to offer a higher minimum wage than Amazon?

In the face of growing criticism that cashless retail tech will leave a big portion of the consumer population in the U.S. behind, Amazon.com has revealed that it plans to allow customers who shop at its Amazon Go stores to pay with cash. Do you think that Amazon Go can appeal to unbanked and underbanked consumers?

The list of retailers and consumer brands setting up their own storefronts on Amazon.com continues to grow. Are retailers and brands getting over their reluctance to sell on competitive marketplaces such as Amazon, Target and Walmart and, if so, why?

For decades, grocers have objected to what they have perceived as a playing field tilted to the benefit of Walmart. Now it seems Walmart is being undercut on price by Amazon.com. Do retailer complaints about rivals getting better deals from suppliers point to an anti-competitive current in the industry today?

Amazon is planning to launch a wireless in-ear headphone to not only challenge Apple’s popular AirPods in the mobile wearables market, but to bring Alexa on the road. How important will developing a wireless earbud be for Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant ambitions?

CVS yesterday has announced that it can make deliveries to customers within hours of prescriptions being filled. The drugstore chain is working with Target-owned Shipt to make deliveries from 6,000 CVS locations across the U.S. Do you expect the demand for home delivery of prescription medicines to grow significantly over the next decade?

A new browser add-on will let visitors to Amazon or Walmart’s websites know if they can get a better deal on a second-hand version of the product they’re searching for at Goodwill. Will Goodwill’s Chrome extension significantly improve its online sales?

Walmart is going all-in on its online grocery business with store pickup options and delivery. Yesterday, Walmart announced that it was enabling its customers to place their orders by voice on any device that uses Google Assistant. Do you see adoption of voice-ordering picking up in any substantial way in the next year or two?

Beginning tomorrow, Whole Foods will lower prices on fresh produce items and offer more weekly deals to Amazon Prime members in departments across the store. What effect, if any, do you expect Whole Foods to feel from its most recent price decreases?

Despite Amazon.com’s success with products such as its Echo voice-activated speakers, not everything is quite as rosy when it comes to the e-tail giant’s private label products. Do you think Amazon’s apparent branding deficiencies are limiting its private label sales?

Tablet sales may have slowed down in recent years, but Walmart has apparently identified an opportunity within the category that it can leverage to drive sales. Do you expect Walmart to follow an Amazon-like strategy and aggressively pursue developing its own tech products under the ONN brand?

Amazon has decided to end its “price parity” rule, which may mean that consumers will find better prices from third-party sellers on other sites. Do you think Amazon’s “price parity” rule was within its rights or did it cross a line?

Starting in July, Philadelphia will become the first major U.S. city to institute a ban on cashless stores. Should retailers be preparing for a backlash to cashless stores? How do you see the dispute playing out in the near- and long-term?

Amazon.com is closing all 87 of its pop-up stores located in malls, Kohl’s and Whole Foods by the end of next month, according to reports by The Wall Street Journal and CNBC. Do you see Amazon’s decision to end its pop-up program as another indicator that it is committed to becoming a major factor in brick and mortar retailing?